


In Over Her Head

by writteninhaste



Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-26
Updated: 2014-08-26
Packaged: 2018-02-14 16:29:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2198808
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writteninhaste/pseuds/writteninhaste
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For some, space is a frontier that cannot be crossed - at least not whole.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In Over Her Head

Joanna did not serve on the  _Enterprise_ . She wanted to – god how she wanted to – but they were already at medical capacity and whilst she could have gone as a simple science officer, there was something in her Daddy’s eyes – something she took to mean that this was his, and this was private – that meant she ultimately applied elsewhere.

She served aboard the _Belfast_ , an Andromeda class ship that had seen better days. The crew were bitter, hardened, passed over one too many times for promotion and unsuited to patrolling the borders of Klingon space. The Kobayashi Maru had once stood as the test to teach cadets helplessness – it was not there any longer. Then-cadet Kirk had proven it ‘pointless’. Joanna wondered if perhaps Kirk had missed the point after-all. Not everyone can be like him.

Space is empty and cold. Joanna learned that lesson within minutes of boarding the _Belfast_. She had seen pictures of the _Enterprise_ , from newsfeeds and recruitment drives – the crew looking smart, and bright and serious; the corridors warm even when empty; the warp-core pulsing with a clear blue light. The _Belfast_ was nothing like that. Was exactly how a starship really is – grey, and cool and isolated; too close inside, too alone outside it. Maybe the _Enterprise_ is different. Maybe Jim makes it so. Maybe, just like with everything else, Kirk’s changed the rules. He changed her father – it would be small work for him to change a ship. There is little opportunity for friendship-making, out in space. Joanna learnt that lesson hard on the heels of the first.

Her mother always warned her, not to go into space. She wanted Joanna close and neat; wanted to see her enter business or advertising, to stay on earth and be some man’s goodwife. Joanna had tried to follow the footsteps of her father; to reconnect in heartfelt ways. She found there were one too many parsecs left between them. Still, when she’s up to her elbows in the helmsman’s intestines, desperately trying to hold the organs inside his body even as they slither and writhe from her grasp, she cannot help wishing that her father were with her. When the helmsman dies, she curses Jim Kirk for taking him away.

She ignored the steady trickle of messages that arrive for her aboard the ship. She knew then that they were more a means for him to assuage his own guilt than any real attempt to connect. She knows different now. Besides, they always came from his joint quarters with the Captain.

The message comes that they will be holding a memorial service for the _Enterprise_. The _Belfast_ is already setting course for home. Joanna loses herself in a bar the moment they hit planet side, refuses to attend the service, ignores her mother’s frantic comms demanding to know where she is. Admiral Pike finds her swigging Romulan ale and turning a comm. badge over and over in her fingers.

“You should be ashamed.” He tells her. She smirks, cocks an eyebrow, thinks ‘you don’t know shit’ and wonders in that moment whether he’s comparing her to the Kirk he scraped off of a table all those years ago.

He left, that night and all the nights after, leaving Joanna to idly peruse the letters that had collected on her Data PADD over the years.

Joanna’s old now. Pike’s long dead in his grave. Her mother’s tomb lies by the family plot – she visits there occasionally. Joanna sits, on the old porch swing her grandfather and her daddy built in anticipation of her arrival. The Data PADD lies on her knee; she knows its words by heart now.

_”Love you, kiddo.”_

“Miss you, Jo, so much.”

“Jim’s still dying to meet you, says M’Benga’s place is yours, if you want it – let me know.”

“I know you probably don’t want to hear from me, Joanna, but I’m never going to stop writing you – not until you write to tell me to stop. Hell, I don’t even know if you’re reading these

\- She’s reading them, Bones

How can you be sure? She never responds.

\- Trust me, I know.”

She hears in Jim’s voice what her father fails to hear, or chooses to ignore. Kirk knows she’s not reading the letters her father sends. She’s reading them now – but she doubts the dead care either way.

The sun sets, and Joanna runs her hand through hair that’s now more white than grey. She’s been clawing her way to the surface, struggling to breathe, from the day that she joined Starfleet. The world still seems too far above her head to reach.


End file.
